A few weeks after Buffy died, Dawn began to fade.

At first it was easy to overlook. Everyone was preoccupied; Buffy’s funeral, then taking turns with Spike’s suicide watch. Dawn made a point of staying out of everyone’s way; of making herself small, and wearing long sleeves to hide old scars, new cuts.

Then Tara, who at first had been determined to provide Dawn with something like normalcy, stopped waking her up at eight in the mornings with pancakes and juice. Dawn ignored the shrill pain of abandonment, and let herself sleep well into the afternoon.

Then it was Giles who stopped calling on the weekends to explain, apologetically, that her father still seemed to be in Europe and that no one was able to get hold of him. Dawn was desperate to see her father, and she would have pursued it, reminded Giles of unspoken promises to her mother and Buffy. But the weeks went by, and it became harder and harder to ignore the confusion in his eyes when he looked at her. So she stopped giving him reasons to do so.

Another two weeks in which Dawn slipped past people without meeting their eyes, staying in her room and pretending that she really just wanted to be alone. Anything to forget how they looked to her now, as though she was seeing them through water, their voices distant and muffled.

One night she padded quietly into the kitchen and rummaged through the drawers for the sharpest knife they owned. She drew a deep line into the flesh of her forearm, from wrist to elbow, and watched as the blood dropped to the floor in fat, quarter sized drops. They lingered a few moments, obscene against the white tile. Then they disappeared.

She ran upstairs to her room upstairs and hid beneath the covers of her bed, too ill to cry.

When she got up again she risked a trip into the bathroom to stare at herself hard in the mirror. She looked sick and ugly; shadowed, baggy eyes in a white face. Still, nothing in the reflection that suggested she was less than miserable flesh and blood.

She wrapped a hand around her wrist and squeezed until the imprint of her hand was white and bloodless. Poisoned, poisonous, now invisible. The Key had outlived its function, and now it was fading away into a place without memory.

She crept quietly down the hall to her mother’s room. She stood at the door a moment—a door they had not bothered to close—and watched her new parents together, Tara’s face hidden in the shadows of Willow’s body.

She walked outside and stood a long moment on the porch, her unreal skin rippling with goose flesh. Then there was the sound of a footstep crushing grass, and her head jerked up.

“Good evening.” A blinding smile. “Is this the Summers residence? I’m looking for a friend of theirs.”

She remembers Ethan Rayne, although she knows they’ve never met. He stands a few feet ahead of her on the sidewalk. His hair is cut close to his scalp, and his face is thinner, tighter than the last time he was in Sunnydale. It makes his smile look sharp.

His eyes glint like razor blades hidden in chocolate candy.

“You’re Ethan Rayne,” she says, surprising him visibly. “You’re a monster,” she adds with no feeling.

Ethan breaks into hearty laughter. “That’s a little rude, don’t you think? I’m fairly certain you won’t find that printed on any of my business cards.” He takes two casual steps forward, his hands concealed in his pockets. “What about you then? I’m afraid you’ve got me at a disadvantage.”

The question closes her throat, painfully. She’s heard Willow call him a sorcerer. He tried to kill Buffy once, tried to kill Giles another time. He isn’t a demon, but he’s dangerous, like the men who lure small children into their cars with candy.

She wonders if she should yell for help from inside the house. She wonders if they would hear her voice, or the inarticulate wail of a ghost.

She crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m Dawn.” And then, because her skin would probably yield like air to any claws he concealed in his pockets, she adds, quietly, “I’m not real.”

Ethan’s head jerks a little, and stares at her, considering. Dawn meets his gaze and he makes no attempt to hide the calculation in his eyes, bold alongside mischief, and—strangely—understanding. She lifts her chin, and Ethan takes a step forward, without menace.

Grins suddenly, wide as a crescent moon. “Would you like to be?”

His hand dangles in the air a long moment before she takes it. His grip is warm and safe, promising nothing.

*
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